Wushu/Kung Fu School in Kunming, China - Part 1
Sifu Terry Hodgkinson aka wandering ninja stays in Kunming, China and spends time with a renowned Sifu (kung fu teacher). The lighting for this video was very low in the school. After the video was compressed for the internet it seems to have a flicker which makes it difficult to see well. Look for part 2 and 3 as they were shot in much better light so the quality will be better!
The Sifu is the son of a very famous teacher who started the school many years ago. I was able to spend time at his school and learn about so many different approaches to Wushu and the more traditional Kung Fu (gong fu) methods of training from the Wudang lineage. You will see both some old (traditional) and new (wushu) demonstrated in the small amount of video I took while there. The Sifu here has students from all over the world that come to train. It was a great honour to be invited into to the Sifu's house and spend some personal time with him, which you will see at the end of the video. - Terry
Background on Sifu's legendary father:
Sifu Sha Guozheng was born in 1904, in Jung Chan County, Shandong Province. It was an area renowned for martial artists and Sha began training at a very early age. He loved to read the Wuxia novels, still popular in China today, about good martial artists triumphing the cause of the poor and oppressed. When young he studied with many different masters and many different styles.
At the age of 16 he moved to Kao Shou, and studied hard for 5 years learning a variety of forms including Shi Lu Tan Tui (10 Roads Springing Legs), Liu He Qiang (6 Harmony Spear), Si Men Dao (4 gate Broadsword), etc. In 1920 he met his first Bagau Zhang teacher, Wang Che-Cheng (a student of Dong Hai-Chuan's student Wang Li-Te.) He learned Lion style Bagua Zhang and Baxian Jian (8 Immortal Sword) from him.
In 1926 he moved to Tianjin, near Beijing, and began to study with Jiang Rong-Qiao. Sha was a very serious student and hard-working student. At this time he learned Bagua Zhang, Xingyi Quan, Taiji Quan. One night in 1928 Sha left the Tianjin Martial Arts Training Association building after practice and was going home. On his way there he saw three drunken, foreign sailors taking liberties with a Chinese woman. Sha became very angry and in a short space of time had rescued the lady and flattened the foreigners. For this act the Tianjin Martial Arts Training Association began to call him Shao Shitou (Little Stone) as he was small in size, but was as hard and fast as a stone skimming over water. They also honoured him with a couplet The foreign toads lusting over the swan's flesh; the small stone punishing the foreign devils.
In 1931 Sha moved to Korea to continue his studies with Wang Che-Cheng. Korea was under Japanese rule at this time. A Japanese soldier came to Wang's school after seeing Sha demonstrating at a festival. He wanted to spar with Sha, he was happy to and asked the soldier to choose his weapon, a long spear, he gave Sha a sword. The Japanese soldier had a reputation as being a fierce fighter with little regard for others. Sha simply evaded his attacks without countering. Finally when the soldier became unsure of his strategy Sha attacked hitting his opponent with the flat blade on the shoulder. With arm paralysed the soldier was beaten.
Moving to Anhui in 1946 Sha invited Jiang Rong-Qiao to teach at the Wuhu Martial Arts School. He lived with Sha for 6 months both researching wushu. This formed the basis for his later books.
Master Sha moved to Kumning in 1949 and met Peng Qing and He Fu-Sheng, among other great wushu masters. After the Cultural Revolution Sha became coach for the Yunnan Wushu team. Master Sha was also proficient in medicine having spent time gathering healing skills from his many Shifu's. Sha healed many people always refusing payment. In 1983 he gave his medical formulas to the Government for the benefit of others. Master Sha Guozheng passed away in 1992.